AMOSOZ
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stammer: "You're my only friend. Of either sex. And my first.
You're also ... Shall I pour you some beer? Do you mind if
I ... talk a little?" You poured out the rest of the beer for me,
absentmindedly drank it yourself, and told me that you intended
never to marry. "A family-you know I have no idea how to handle
all that. Are you hot? Do you want us to leave?" Your dream was to
be a strategist. Or something like a military theoretician. And not in
uniform. To leave the army, go back to the university in Jerusalem,
take a second and a third degree, "and in fact apart from you,
Brandstetter, that is ... up to the time you raped me ... girls '
weren't exactly my territory. Nothing doing. Even though I'm a big
boy of twenty-eight. Nothing. That is ... apart from ... sexual
urges. Which actually gave me quite a lot of trouble. But apart from
the urge . .. not a thing. I've never managed to ... to make
friends. Or to study up on romance. As a matter of fact, I haven't
even made friends with men particularly. Don't get me wrong. In
the intellectual, or professional, area I do have a sort of ... circle.
More or less. A group of like-minded people. But as for emotion and
all that ... it always made me feel pressured. I l\sed to ask myself
why I should start having feelings for strangers'. Or for strange
women. Until I ... met you. Until you took up with me. The fact
of the matter is that even with you I felt under pressure. Only,
there's something between us, isn't there? I
c~n't
define it. Maybe
we're . . . two of a kind."
Then you talked about your plans again: to finish writing your
doctoral thesis by 1964, and then work on a theory. War studies.
Perhaps something more general, a thesis about violence in history.
In all periods. Look for a common denominator. Maybe reach
something like a personal solution. That is, a personal solution to a
fundamental philosophical problem. So you said, and you continued
for a little longer; then suddenly you shouted at the waiter that the
place was swarming with flies, you started killing them, and you
shut up. You asked for my "reaction."
And I, for the first time with you, used the word
love.
I said to
you, more or less, that your sadness was my love. That you had
aroused an emotional ambition in me. That you and I, the two of us,
perhaps really were two of a kind. That I wanted to have a child with
you. That you were a fascinating person. That if you would marry
me, I would marry you.
And that was the night, after that conver.sation in the filling sta–
tion at Gedera, that your virility let you down in my bed. And you
